Getting there

When traveling to Israel, I strongly prefer to fly El Al. There is a direct flight Boston-Tel Aviv, planes are comfortable, food is good, and - most importantly - it is reassuring. In this day and age, when European or even American companies may suspend flights to and from Israel at any moment because of military uncertainties or political shenanigans, I know that El Al will fly, if at all possible. So I don't mind paying a little extra for the peace of mind.

This time, however, because we were buying tickets just a week in advance, the El Al flight out of Logan for our date was completely booked. (That's only on the way there - probably lots of people wanted to fly to Israel to take part in the elections, happening at the end of the month. On the way back, one week before the elections, we had no trouble getting seats for the direct flight and the plane was nowhere near full.) 

So on the way there, we flew Lufthansa, through Munich. And Lufthansa is one of only two companies that fly the Airbus A380-800 into Logan (the other one being British Airways). It is a monster of a plane! A quadjet double-deck aircraft (which means it has four engines and two passenger floors), with a wingspan of about 80 m (260 ft)...  Here are some photos of it that I took in 2003 over Castle Island.

And now we were flying it from Boston to Munich.

David and Katlyn also flew an A380-800 from Munich the previous year, and now David told me that if I could see the wings during the flight, I was in for a treat - how they would be curved while on the ground and straightening in the air... And as luck would have it, we were seated right above the rear edge of the wing, so I was in a great position to take photos at every stage.

Here we are on the ground.

Take-off was in the dark, so as soon as we moved away from the terminal, I couldn't really see the wing. But once we flew into daylight - here it is!

And now - bending this way and that for landing...

Finally, here is a look at our plane from inside the terminal in Munich. See how it uses a triple jetway? Two jetways connect to the lower deck, and another links directly to the upper-deck door.

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